Freud Museum London

Freud Museum London

20 Maresfield Gardens in Hampstead was the final home of Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, who came here with his family in 1938, after fleeing Nazi-occupied Vienna.

Importantly for Freud, he was able to bring his extensive library and collection of antiquities with him to London. In his new home, he recreated his study and consulting room as it been in Vienna and here you will find the original psychoanalytic couch on which Freud’s patients told him their dreams.

The Freud Museum is committed to maximising accessibility for everyone. Please see our access policy to see how we can meet your access needs.

Events & Exhibitions

Monster Love: Facing Fauna Phobia

Saturday 24 March 2018 | 1:00PM

Drop-in workshop for families

This workshop invites participants to bring out and tackle irrational other-than-human animal fears through crafting. The aim is to reduce biophobia, and encourage in its place biophilia and nature connection (Kellert & Wilson, 1993). The process has its roots in exposure therapy with the core protocol that one should ‘go towards that which you are afraid of’ (Wilson, 2012).

In spending time reflecting on the features of one’s fear, and drawing, cutting and sewing a cuddly version of it, there is keen potential to shift from a negative to a positive belief system. The resultant artefact prolongs the exposure experience, serving in intention to reduce the twin phobia components – fear and disgust (Richard & Lauterbach, 2006), before becoming a memento, a souvenir that commemorates one’s taming of a personal monster.

Monster Love forms part of a practice-based research programme undertaken by Sarah Johnson, a Design PhD student at Kingston School of Art. Participants will be requested to undertake a brief ‘connection to nature’ task pre- and post-workshop, and complete a short debriefing questionnaire/interview.

Research design will be given full ethics clearance by Kingston University ahead of the workshop. Sarah’s research is funded by the London Doctoral Design Centre and can be found here.

Booking:
Free with admission – it is necessary to reserve places on Eventbrite in advance
https://freud.org.uk/events/77065/monster-love-facing-fauna-phobia/

Freud & the Ancient World

Saturday 17 March 2018 | 10:00AM

Intensive Day Course
10:00am-5:00pm

Everyone has heard of the Oedipus complex. Freud’s ideas have left a profound impression on the modern cultural imagination. But where did Freud’s Oedipus come from? And how did he come up with the phallic mother? How did Freud invent a new way of reading literature and art? And what intellectual history made Freud’s psychoanalysis of religion and civilisation possible?

Just as Freud exhorted us to search out the origins of our desires and identities – to become a modern Oedipus – so this series of public lectures excavates the origins of Freud’s ideas. We will learn that there would have been no psychoanalysis without Freud’s obsession with the ancient world.

First session: examines the importance of ancient ideas about desire and pleasure for Freud’s understanding of gender and sexuality.

Second session: will consider the significance of ancient texts for Freud’s discussions of literature and art.

Third session: will look at how Freud’s discussions of Judaism, Christianity and modern civilisation emerged out of his interest in ancient religion. When Freud formulated the contours of the modern individual in modern society, he could not help but look back to antiquity to understand who we are.

Dr Daniel Orrells is Reader in Ancient Literature and Its Reception at King’s College London, where he is Head of the Department of Classics. His research examines the presence of classical antiquity in modern cultural, literary and intellectual history. His most recent book ‘Sex: Antiquity and its Legacy’ offers a fresh, new narrative about the importance of the ancient world for the development of sexology and psychoanalysis

Dr Daniel Orrells’ book ‘Sex: Antiquity and it Legacy’ is available from the Museum shop.

Tea and coffee will be provided during both breaks. Please note: there is no cafe on site, however, you are welcome to bring your own lunch, which can be consumed in the classroom, or the Museum garden if the weather is fine.

Inside the Freud Museums: History, Memory & Site-Responsive Art

Thursday 8 March 2018 | 6:30PM

Author and Artists Talk and Book Launch

Art historian and theorist Joanne Morra will give a reading from her book Inside the Freud Museums: History, Memory and Site-responsive Art (IB Tauris, 2018). She will be joined by cultural theorist and artist Mieke Bal, and artists Susan Hiller and Michelle Williams Gamaker who will speak about their respective exhibitions at the Freud Museum London.

The talks and discussion will be followed by a drinks reception marking the launch of the publication.

This event has been generously supported by Research at Central Saint Martins, Central Saint Martins’ Art Programme (University of the Arts London), and IB Tauris.

About the book:

Sigmund Freud spent the final year of his life at 20 Maresfield Gardens, London, surrounded by all his possessions, in exile from the Nazis. The long-term home and workspace he left behind in Berggasse 19, Vienna is a seemingly empty space, devoid of the great psychoanalyst’s objects and artefacts. Now museums, both of these spaces resonate powerfully.

Since 1989, the Freud Museum London has held over 90 exhibitions by a distinctive range of artists including Mieke Bal & Michelle Williams Gamaker, Louise Bourgeois, Sophie Calle, Susan Hiller, and Sarah Lucas. The Sigmund Freud Museum Vienna houses a small but impressive contemporary art collection, with work by John Baldessari, Joseph Kosuth, Jenny Holzer, Franz West and Ilya Kabakov. In this remarkable book, Joanne Morra offers a nuanced analysis of these historical museums and their unique relationships to contemporary art.

Taking us on a journey through the ‘site-responsive’ artworks, exhibitions and curatorial practices that intervene in the objects, spaces and memories of these museums, Joanne Morra offers a fresh experience of the history and practice of psychoanalysis, of museums and contemporary art.

Anna Freud Tour for International Women’s Day

Wednesday 7 March 2018 | 2:00PM

2:00pm – 2:30pm

Volunteer tour

To help commemorate International Women’s Day on the 8th March, this tour will introduce you to the many and subtle ways in which aspects of Anna’s personality and relationships are reflected throughout the House. Share a closer look at some of the displays, explore examples of her achievements and reflect on the continuing relevance of her pioneering work.

BLACK BOOK: Sacha Craddock in conversation with artist Gideon Rubin

Tuesday 20 February 2018 | 7:00PM

Art critic and writer Sacha Craddock will be in conversation with artist Gideon Rubin about his Freud Museum project BLACK BOOK and discussing the way propaganda is used to generate racial conflict, which in turn affects the plight of asylum seekers and refugees.

The conversation will be moderated by curator James Putnam.

The artist’s specially created project for Freud’s final home relates to the era of the late 1930s, when Freud left Vienna for London. A series of paintings on canvas, linen and paper take inspiration drawn from original pre-WW2 German magazines that Rubin has collected. The idealised images of heath and efficiency in the magazines were designed to promote the myth of Aryan supremacy in Nazi propaganda. Rubin has subverted these images in his characteristic style by masking out the faces, Nazi references and swastika motifs. The process relates to our human tendency to block out unpleasant memories from our psyche.

BLACK BOOK is the latest exhibition in a critically acclaimed series curated by James Putnam on display at the Museum from 7 February – 15 April 2018.

Booking:
Full Price £10
Friends of the Museum £7
Students / concessions £7

PROJECTIONS: Neurosis on Film

Monday 19 February 2018 | 7:00PM

Six-week evening course
Mondays 7-9pm
19 February – 26 March 2018

Scottish physician William Cullen first employed the term ‘neurosis’ in 1769 to summarise “general diseases of the sense or motion” where there appeared to be no observable organic cause. Sigmund Freud redefined and popularised the neurosis diagnosis in the 20th century, developing it as a central construct in psychoanalytic theory and practice.

PROJECTIONS is psychoanalysis for film interpretation. PROJECTIONS empowers film spectators to express subjective associations they consider to be meaningful. Expertise in psychoanalytic theory is not necessary – the only prerequisite is the desire to enter and inhabit the imaginary world of film, which is itself a psychoanalytic act. MARY WILD, a Freudian cinephile from Montreal, is the creator of PROJECTIONS.

Learning

The Education Service caters for groups in primary, secondary and tertiary education, allowing students to explore the resources of the museum, experience the intense atmosphere of Freud’s Study and consulting room, and discuss Freud’s life and work at times when the Museum is closed to the general public.